In U.S. Pat. No. 4,169,090, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference and assigned to the assignee of this application, and also in the corresponding Canadian Pat. No. 1,028,552 (which matured from Canadian Pat. application Ser. No. 262,397), there is described a process for the production of a unique protein isolate from various protein sources by a controlled two-step operation. In the first step, the protein source material is subjected to an aqueous food grade salt solution at a temperature of about 15.degree. to about 35.degree. C., a salt concentration of 0.2 to 0.8 ionic strength, and a pH of about 5.5 to about 6.5 to solubilize protein in the source material, usually in about 10 to about 60 minutes, to form a salt solubilized protein solution. In the second step, the aqueous protein solution is diluted by addition to water to decrease its ionic strength to a value less than about 0.1.
The dilution of the aqueous protein solution which may have a protein concentration, for example, up to about 10% w/v, causes association of protein molecules to form on aqueous dispersion highly proteinaceous micelles which settle in the form of an amorphous, viscous, sticky, gluten-like protein micellar mass having a moisture content of about 60 to about 75% by weight. The protein micellar mass so produced is referred to herein as PMM. The PMM exhibits a functionality not exhibited by the source material nor by an isoelectric isolate of that material.